New CEQ Guidance on NEPA & Mitigation
The CEQ has issued new guidance to agencies regarding the use of mitigation. An environmental impact statement is required when a project has a significant environmental impact. Agencies frequently avoid the need for a full-scale environmental impact statement with plans to mitigate the impacts below the threshold of significance. NEPA aficionados call this a "mitigated FONSI," with FONSI standing for "Finding of No Significant Impact." But the mitigation plans are...
CONTINUE READINGEverything You Always Wanted to Know About Federal Preemption But Were Afraid to Ask
When is a state law preempted by a federal law on the same subject? This is a notoriously messy area of Supreme Court jurisprudence. For those interested in a quick introduction to the subject, I've written a paper that provides an overview of federal preemption law, which appears on the site of the Uniform Law Commissioners as part of their project on federalism and state law. The paper is designed as a background survey rather than either an advocacy piece or a co...
CONTINUE READINGUCLA Law releases new environmental blueprint for California
In the looming battle over California's budget, will there be room for environmental protections? What should Governor Brown's top-priority environmental initatives be? UCLA Law released today "An Environmental Blueprint for California," giving our view of the priorities Governor Brown should focus on to ensure the state's environmental health in ways consistent with its economic prosperity. California faces difficult choices ahead. Our new blueprint recogn...
CONTINUE READINGEPA vetoes mountaintop removal mining permit
Cross-posted at CPRBlog. If EPA is afraid of the new Congress, you wouldn't know it from today's news. Assistant Administrator Peter Silva issued the Obama administration's first veto of a Clean Water Act section 404 permit. This veto, which has been working its way through the cumbersome process for more than a year (see here, here, here, and here), is only the 13th in agency history, the second since 1989, and the first to be issued after a permit had been issued. I...
CONTINUE READINGGaming Out EPA, Congress, and Climate Change
The Republican Party is not going to sit still as EPA regulates greenhouse gas emissions. Oh yes, they and their assorted constituencies will file lawsuits, but there is a more direct way for them to go: simply attach a rider to a free-standing EPA appropriations bill forbidding it to spend any funds on regulating greenhouse gas emissions. (Maybe ditto with Transportation and Energy, but it's EPA where the action is). There will be little trouble getting enough D...
CONTINUE READINGChina and Carbon Markets
In a surprising development, China may be planning to create an internal carbon market a/k/a cap & trade. According to Climate Wire, When professor Chen Hongbo tried to promote carbon trading in China three years ago, he found himself under fire. As developing countries like China aren't obliged to limit the byproduct of their economic growth, opponents argued vehemently that they saw no need to motivate Chinese industries to either emit less greenhouse gases or ...
CONTINUE READINGNinth Circuit affirms that ignorance is bliss
Lack of information is a continuing problem for environmental policy. In part, that's unavoidable; we'll never know enough about the world around us to be confident that we're making the best choices. In part it is because potential regulatory targets control some needed information. And in significant part it's because decisionmakers have a tendency to close their eyes to avoid confronting inconvenient facts (like the vole in the picture above, who doesn't see the att...
CONTINUE READINGSix Myths About Climate Change and the Clean Air Act
It's often said that the Clean Air Act is an inappropriate way to address climate change. It would undoubtedly be desirable for Congress to pass new legislation on the subject, but the Clean Air Act is a more appropriate vehicle than many people seem to realize. There are six common misconceptions about the statute that have led to confusion: Myth #1: EPA has made a power grab by trying to use the Clean Air Act. Not true -- the Supreme Court held that greenhouse g...
CONTINUE READING“Cementing” the GOP’s Environmental Policy in Place
It looks like an early agenda item for the GOP will be eliminating EPA's regulation of cement plants, according to press reports. H.J. Res. 100 would repeal the regulation and prevent any future similar regulation. Economists and environmentalists should be equally unhappy with this rollback effort. This is one regulation where the cost-benefit analysis seems to come out firmly on the environmental side, according to the NY Times environmental blog, The E.P.A. estim...
CONTINUE READINGPlenty of blame to go around
The Oil Spill Commission has released a chapter from its upcoming report on the Deepwater Horizon disaster. The Commission describes this chapter as containing the report's "key findings". The chapter focuses on the operations immediately preceding the explosion. According to the Commission, BP, Halliburton, Transocean, the oil industry as a whole, Congress, and multiple presidential administrations all share responsibility for the blow-out and its consequences. From ...
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